1.1

Q:   I've just installed FlashGot and restarted my browser, but I see only the "Build gallery" and "FlashGot options" menu items. No "FlashGot link", no "FlashGot selection", no "FlashGot all"! If I look at the download manager list, I see NO DOWNLOAD MANAGER DETECTED. What's happening?
A:   This is quite a long answer, because it tries to take in account all the possible situations that can happen with the wide range of supported products. Please be patient and read it carefully, as it likely covers your issue too...
Check in FlashGot options that your download manager is correctly selected and enabled.
If your download manager is not enabled, turn on the FlashGot Options|Advanced|Automatic download manager detection and hit the Detect Now button. If your download manager is still not detected, best bet is a corrupted/incomplete installation of your download manager program:

• If you're using a Windows download manager (ReGet, Net Transport, LeechGet or any other supported one), probably it has not been properly installed (some component is not registered).
  Try to install that product again. If there's an option to install something like "IE integration", answer Yes. But beware: if it says Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox plugin, you should not install it to avoid conflicts and problems. Strange but true: IE -> YES, Mozilla -> NO!
  You can actually tell if your installation is OK by checking if the "Download with XyzDownloadManager" menu item actually works in MSIE.
  In facts, when it's possible FlashGot exploits the already present "bridge" component used by your download manager to communicate with MSIE. This object can be missing or misinstalled for many reasons, e.g.:
  1. You was given the option of installing during your download manager setup, but you skipped it because you planned to use Firefox rather than IE (please reinstall carefully, see above)
  2. You installed your download manager logged with an unprivileged, non administrative, user account. Installing such a component requires administrative permissions, so redo download manager installation as Administrator or equivalent, if you can.
  3. Your antivirus/antispyware deleted your bridge component incorrectly detecting it as a malware. This may happen because those bridge components are usually implemented as BHO (Browser Helper Object) DLLs, the most similar thing to a Firefox addon known in the Interne Explorer world. Many security software vendors report all the DLLs of this kind as annoyances and disable/delete them. Please configure if your security tools not to mess with files located in your download manager installation folder (e.g. the Jccatch.dll file in the FlashGet case) and reinstall your download manager.
  LeechGet users!!! This seems a very common issue with LeechGet & FlashGot. LeechGet default setup skips the installation of an "IE integration Component". You have to re-install LeechGet, paying attention to include this "IE integration component" called (LeechGet 200x Internet Explorer Extension in latest versions).
  If you're upgrading (e.g. from LeechGet 2005 to LeechGet 2006), be also sure you uninstall previous versions before installing new version.
  If you already upgraded and didn't do this way, please uninstall every LeechGet version you've got, reboot if needed and then reinstall latest version.
• If your platform is Linux, check that your download manager executable (aria for Aria, nt or d4x depending on version for Downloader 4 X) is in the executable path.
• If your platform is Mac OS X, be sure your download manager (Speed Download, IGet...) is properly installed in the /Application folder. If it is already, try to uninstall it using its uninstaller program and reinstall it again in the Application folder, following with a sane reboot.
• If you're a Chinese, Japanese, Russian or otherwise Unicode-dependent user, i.e. your language uses "special" characters outside the ASCII set, please take a look at FAQ 1.3
• Be sure you installed both the browser and the download manager under an administrative account (it is the recommended setup).

Did you check all the above items and still can't make FlashGot work? I'll appreciate if you notify me attaching your log (FlashGot Options|Advanced|Show Log).

1.2

Q:   Download all and Download selection behave strangely with LeechGet: i.e. why is the former so slow and why doesn't the latter preserve the original referrer?
A:   LeechGet has currently an automation interface that is somehow less flexible than other supported download managers.To work around this problem, FlashGot lets LeechGet parse internally the original URL, and it works quite well for Download all, even though it fetches the page again (so it's a bit slower) and could potentially catch less links than the "pure FlashGot" system, because it misses JavaScript dynamic generated links. The Download selection implementation is even more tricky, because FlashGot has to build an intermediate html page including the selected link and pass it to LeechGet for parsing: since LeechGet doesn't support fetching local ("file://") URLs, I had to implement a very rudimentary HTTP server inside the browser (yes, don't laugh!) to serve the page on the fly, from URLs like "http://localhost:1234/URLLIST.html": obviously, this will become the refer(r)er. Currently I can't imagine a simple way to fix this issue (building a full fledged HTTP filtering proxy server inside Mozilla not exactly qualifying as "simple"), but I'm open to fair suggestions :-)

1.3

Q:   My account name is typed using non-ASCII characters [i.e. Traditional Chinese, Polish, Hebrew...] and
A) No download manager detected
or
B) FlashGot brings up a dialog saying: 'Can't open file "C\:Documents and Settings\{My username}\Locals~1\temp\flashgot\flashgot.fgt"' Could this problem be solved?
A:   I can't fix this in a satisfactory manner until there are Windows 98 users around (an Unicode fully aware FlashGot version wouldn't work on those old systems).
In the meanwhile we can work around the problem.
Try to create a directory in a path where you have write permissions and containing only ASCII characters, for instance E:\MYTEMP.
Then open FlashGot Options|Advanced and change the Temporary Directory from C:\Document and settings\... to E:\MYTEMP or whatever you've named your new directory.
Hit OK, then shutdown and restart your browser, crossing your fingers :-)

1.4

Q:   I've got a little trouble installing the extension using Mozilla Suite (or SeaMonkey). After downloading the install starts and i get the following error:
You probably don't have appropriate permissions (write access to your profile or chrome directory).
Error code: -202
Installation works flawlessly in Firefox.
A:   Due to a limitation in Mozilla Suite (which lacks the true extensions support introduced with Firefox), installing an addon which delivers its own XPCOM components (such as FlashGot, NoScript, FoxyTunes, ColorZilla and many others) can be a bit cumbersome.
You need write access to the Mozilla installation directory when you install the extension. This can happen in different ways:

1. You can regularly run Mozilla as root/Administrator (not advised for obvious security reasons!!!).
2. You can run Mozilla as root/Administrator just once and install the extension globally, so it is avalaible to other users/profiles too
3. You can install a local copy of mozilla in your home directory and use it as a regular user (recommended solution).

Firefox doesn't suffer of this problem because XPCOM components are installed in the profile directory (where you always have write permissions).

1.5

Q:   After uninstalling FlashGot or changing my external download manager, downloads are still redirected (or attempted to be redirected) to my old download manager. What's happening?
A:   Many download managers are shipped with a native Mozilla plugin, i.e. a DLL file, which provides a very limited download support redirecting single browser clicks to the external program. If you use FlashGot you don't need this DLL plugin at all and you should not install it (see FAQ 1.1). If you accidentally installed a native plugin, it will always take over your single click downloads even if you change your FlashGot download manager selection or uninstall FlashGot. Actually, sometimes it could still attempt download redirection even after you uninstalled the download manager program. These annoying plugin DLLs are usually placed in your C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins. Some known plugins are npfdm.dll (for Free Download Manager), fdplugin.dll (for FreshDownload), NPLeetchGet.dll (for LeechGet).
You can learn which plugins are actually installed and how their DLLs are called typing about:plugins in your address bar and hitting [Enter]. If your about:plugins page lists a DLL related with your download manager, you'd better locate that file and delete it to avoid the forementioned problems.

1.6

Q:   My download manager appears to be detected, but when I try to download something I get this error message: "Download manager not properly installed. Incorrect function". What's happening?
A:   Just what the message says: your download manager is not properly installed. More specifically, a COM component which FlashGot communicates with is missing or not properly registered. Sometimes, for instance, the Jccatch.dll FlashGet library gets deleted by overzelous (and wrong) antispyware softwares. Just reinstall your download manager, and possibly check your antivirus/antispyware settings to prevent this from happening again. FAQ 1.1 may help too.

1.7

Q:   I've just upgraded to the lastest version of Mozilla Suite / SeaMonkey, and FlashGot has ceased working. I cans still see icons and all, but when I click they do nothing!
A:   Due to a limitation in Mozilla Suite and SeaMonkey (both lack true extensions support, introduced with Firefox), addons delivering their own XPCOM components (such as FlashGot, NoScript, FoxyTunes, ColorZilla and many others) must be reinstalled every time you install/upgrade your browser.
Just reinstall FlashGot and everything should be fine again.

1.8

Q:   One of the FlashGot's keyboard shortcuts conflicts with another extension I use (e.g. ctrl+F1 / Tab Mix Plus). Can I disable it?
A:   You can reconfigure keyboard shortcuts using the keyconfig extension.

1.9

Q:   FlashGot does not seem to work on my Ubuntu Linux. I launch a download and nothing happens. What's going on?
A:   If you're using a recent Ubuntu or another distribution enabling AppArmor by default, you need to tweak your AppArmor configuration file in order to allow FlashGot to communicate with external download manager (something which is prevented by the default AppArmor policy).
To do that, you need to add a

owner /tmp/flashgot.*/*.fgt ixr,

line to your /etc/apparmor.d/usr.bin.firefox file, anywhere between the curly braces which enclose most of the document.
If you don't know where to start yet, your can just copy & paste the following lines in a terminal:

echo 'AA=/etc/apparmor.d/usr.bin.firefox; grep flashgot $AA || \
(egrep -v "^}" $AA && echo "  # FlashGot extension launcher scripts" && \
echo "  owner /tmp/flashgot.*/*.fgt ixr," && echo "}") > \
/tmp/flashgot-aa && mv /tmp/flashgot-aa $AA && \
/etc/init.d/apparmor restart && echo "Done."' \
> /tmp/flashgot-aa.sh && sudo bash /tmp/flashgot-aa.sh

2.1

Q:   Is FlashGot a spyware? Does it contain spyware?
A:   FlashGot is not a spyware at all. Early versions of FlashGot were detected as malicious code (virus/trojan/spyware) because they dropped an utility executable (FlashGot.exe, formerly flashgot.vbs) in the temporary directory as a mean to communicate with the external download managers. Now the executable is created in you profile directory, and it should fix the antivirus screaming. Anyway you can check with your eyes the "cleanliness" of FlashGot source code downloading the XPI file and opening it with a ZIP utility (inside there's also a JAR you want to unarchive). It is all JavaScript/XUL with a single C++ file (FlashGot.cpp), which is the source of FlashGot.exe.
News (June 10, 2005): FlashGot has been granted of the 100% Free Softpedia Award:
Your product "FlashGot 0.5.9.6" has been tested by the Softpedia labs and found to be completely clean of adware/spyware components. We are impressed with the quality of your product and encourage you to keep these high standards in the future.
Sweet :-)

2.2

Q:   I heard that FlashGet is a spyware. Does FlashGot promote spyware?
A:   First of all, let me remark that FlashGet (the well known download manager) is NOT FlashGot, the integration bridge which makes Firefox talk with the best download managers (dozens, including FlashGet). FlashGet the download manager and GetRight, another popular one, used to be adware, something that is sometimes associated with spyware. Recent versions of both these products are reported to be clear, e.g. they got the 100% Free Softpedia Certification.

2.3

Q:   I read versions 0.3.4 and above of FlashGot contain a "simple HTTP server" (and my personal firewall complaints about it). Is it a danger for my privacy/security?
A:   FlashGot 0.3.4 only uses the HTTP protocol to serve the Download selection URL list for LeechGet. It was an apparently mad idea I had just before giving up and disabling this feature for LeechGet, but it worked (more or less), and now that the infrastructure is in place I'm planning to use it as a mean of inter-process communication to integrate non-gui and/or non-COM download managers like wget, prozilla, axel and so on and achieve the much requested Linux/Unix support.
Someone (including some zelous firewall) may argue it is a potential security breach, but I can assure (and you can verify digging the source JavaScript code FlashGotService.js) that this is indeed the most secure web server in the world:

1. It is bound only to your loopback interface (localhost), so it will not accept any request coming from outside your PC
2. It supports only one method, GET
3. It serves only documents produced by itself (it keeps track in memory of the generated documents, and matches each request against its internal list)
4. Currently generated documents are only url lists for Download selection command
5. Each generated document has a random 8 character unique name, so it's very hard to fetch it unless you know about it, i.e. you are a download manager and FlashGot whispers the name in your ears :-)
6. Server TCP port randomly changes every time you start the browser

Maybe it is also the most lightweight HTTP server in the world: less than 200 lines of JavaScript code ;-)

3.1

Q:   What is a download manager?
A:   A "download manager" or "download accelerator" (e.g. wxDownload Fast, ReGet or Speed Download) is a program that performs downloads, usually many at the same time, optimizing bandwidth usage and surviving the shutdown of the program itself and of the system (for instance you can start a long download at your office this morning, turn off you PC in the evening when you go back home, and resume it tomorrow); it can also sort your files in different folders by type. Firefox has a rudimentary built-in download manager, but it uses bandwidth in a non-optimal way, has poor file management features and doesn't survive current browser session. See also Download Manager (Wikipedia).

3.2

Q:   Do I need a download manager?
A:   You need a download manager if you regularly download many and/or big files, possibly of different types, and you want a tool that takes care of those downloads even if you quit the browser or you turn off your computer and/or organize them so that at the end of your downloads you automatically find all the music in the "Music" folder, all the movies in the "Movies" folder, all the images in the "Images" folder and so on.
Another important feature you want in a download managers is "download acceleration": they can fine tune their network activity in order to optimize either for download speed or for browsing friendness, e.g. by splitting a single download job in chunks in order to work-around server bandwidth limits with multiple connections and achieve maximum download speed or, at the other end, by imposing a top limit to the bandwidth reserved for downloads so you've got enough to browse the web while downloading in background. The best download manager products are also capable of dinamically reconfigure these parameters in order to obtain the best outcome depending on your needs.
Last but not least, one reason to prefer an external download manager over the one built-in in your browser (especially for the largest files), is the independence from the browser itself: an external download manager is way more lightweight than a full-featured web browser, eats far less memory, is usually much more stable and can run the same download for days no matter if your browser crashes, power goes down or if you turn off your computer: downloads will be automatically suspended on shutdown and resumed at next boot.

3.3

Q:   Why do I need FlashGot?
A:   Usually a download manager comes with a so called "browser plugin", a little program that lets the browser tell the external download manager, that user has clicked on a downloadable link and it should take care of it. This is something, but former IE users are used to a more sophisticated form of browser integration, which never has been done in Mozilla/Firefox before FlashGot: with FlashGot you get a bunch of contextual menu items (namely "FlashGot Link", "FlashGot Selection" and "FlashGot All") that let you send to the download manager not only one single link, but even multiple links at once. Many people found this thing very useful.
These are only the basic. You can discover FlashGot features here.

3.4

Q:   I've seen DownloadWith has configurable download manager support... why does FlashGot support a limited number of download managers?
A:   DownloadWith launches supported download managers passing the single URL to be downloaded through a command line interface. That's fine, and allows customization for every download manager that accepts command line parameters.
On the other hand FlashGot aim is completely different: it is meant to handle multiple URLs at the same time (i.e. FlashGot All and FlashGot Selection). To do this, it has to use much more complex means of interprocess communication than DownloadWith or similar extensions: in most cases it goes for native COM interfaces. This technique requires writing some C++ code every time a new download manager support has to be added. This prevents the average user (not the programmer) to configure a download manager different than the ones already supported.

4.1

Q:   How do I install FlashGot?
A:  

• Go to this page and follow the instructions.
  Should it not work, with a message about installation not permitted or disabled, follow these steps:
  1. Open Tools|Options|Security
  2. Click on the exceptions button next to Warn me when websites try to install add-ons
  3. Type "flashgot.net" in the text box
  4. Hit "allow" button
  5. Retry installation
• If Firefox still refuses to install the xpi,
  1. Open about:config in your location bar (just like a normal web site address)
  2. Find the xpinstall.enabled preference and set it to true
  3. Retry installation
• If you get an Invalid package error (Firefox) or an Error -239 (SeaMonkey 1.x), you're facing a (temporary) network failure. Please clear your cache and try again (maybe half an hour later). You may also try the direct link on this page.
• If you get an Error -220 on SeaMonkey 1.x, please read FAQ 1.4.

More about the above and other useful hints for special cases (e.g. "Error -203") in this Mozillazine knowledge base article.
It's also been reported that certain security applications, such as ThreatFire, may prevent some Firefox extensions from being installed. If you see this happening, try to temporarily disable the offending application (thanks Emil Baldwin Jr. for reporting).

4.2

Q:   So I've downloaded this XPI thing. I've never seen such a file type! What the hell am I supposed to do with this kind of file?
A:   Just drag and drop this file onto your browser window. If it doesn't work, select the Tools|Add-ons|Extensions menu item: the Extension Manager window opens, and you can drag and drop your XPI file there.

4.3

Q:   I want to get rid of FlashGot. How can I uninstall it?
A:   Well, this is not exactly a frequently asked question, but nevertheless someone (very few) actually wondered about it... Just for academic knowledge sake:

1. If you're using Firefox, open the Extension Manager by selecting the Toos|Add-ons menu and choosing the Extensions tab).
   Highlight the "FlashGot" row and click the Uninstall button.
   In the rare case it doesn't work, read next points.
2. If your Extension Manager does not open or your extensions are not shown there, your Mozilla/Firefox Profile is probably corrupted: migrating your data to a new profile may help.
3. If you're using Mozilla or SeaMonkey, please refer to this article.

If you want to get rid of the external download manager as well, you have also to delete the native Mozilla plugin shipped with your download manager, i.e. a DLL file placed in your %MOZILLA_HOME%\plugins directory, that you may have accidentally installed. Some known plugins are npfdm.dll (Free Download Manager), fdplugin.dll (FreshDownload), NPLeetchGet.dll (LeechGet).
You can learn which plugins are installed and how their DLLs are called typing about:plugins in your address bar and hitting [Enter]. Notice that if you use FlashGot, you don't need any of them, and I strongly discourage their usage.

Appendix A: Getting rid of True Downloader. True Downloader is far from being perfect in many areas, including uninstaller :(
To get rid of its FlashGot menu entry you have to manually delete at least this registry key (with its descendants) using regedit.exe (be careful!):

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TrueDownloaderProject.TrueDownloader

If you feel confident enough with the Windows registry, you may want to finish cleanup removing also:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{5C1E8BA7-BCE7-4370-8DA5-F7FAF7E479CB}
and
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{B5F45811-6072-4A70-8741-B783AD048A31}


Appendix B: Getting rid of HiDownload.
It seems HiDownload uninstallation program is defective.
It actually leaves a remnant which is autodetected by FlashGot even after uninstalling the program:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\NMDll.dll

Before you remove it, you must issue this command to unregister it:

regsvr32 /u C:\WINDOWS\system32\NMDll.dll

(adjust path according to your window system directory location).

4.4

Q:   I don't like FlashGot redirecting the browser on its release notes page every time I upgrade it. Is there any way to prevent this?
A:   First time you install FlashGot and every time you upgrade it to a newer major version, Firefox opens an additional tab containing the FlashGot welcome page, where you can read the release notes, announcements and an explanation of the most important FlashGot features. If you feel you don't need such heads up, you can disable this feature by opening FlashGot Options|Advanced and unchecking "Display the release notes on update". Notice: if the above "fix" doesn't work or, worse, you keep being redirected on the welcome page every time you restart Firefox, chances are there's something (like a buggy extension or a corrupted profile) preventing your preferences from being saved: you may need to perform some standard diagnostic or, in the worst case, to migrate your data to a new profile.

4.5

Q:   Yes, I love FlashGot, but having it updated every 15-20 days is too often for me. What can I do?
A:   Since I (the author) use FlashGot daily in a wide range of situations, I constantly improve it, for instance to work-around "download protection" systems found in many site which would break external download manager usage otherwise: very frequent builds containing cosmetic bug fixes or experimental features are available from http://flashgot.net/getit#devel, but the updates pushed automatically through the addons.mozilla.org channel are only the "stable" ones, containing major functionality additions or bug fixes.
At any rate, if you prefer automatic updates to be delivered with a lower frequency, you can raise the extensions.update.interval about:config preference.
You could also disable FlashGot automatic updates by creating a new about:config preference named extensions.{19503e42-ca3c-4c27-b1e2-9cdb2170ee34}.update.enabled and setting it to false.
Furthermore, if you want to completely turn off automatic updates and perform all your upgrades manually whenever you want, you can simply set the extensions.update.enabled about:config preference to false.
Even more control over updates and other aspects of extension management is given by the excellent MR Tech's Local Install Extension by Mel Reyes.
Even if you disabled automatic updates, you could still catch up with new releases by subscribing the FlashGot changelog feed.
Finally, if you're fine with automatic updates but you're just bothered by the welcome page displaying FlashGot's release notes, you may want to read FAQ 4.4.

5.1

Q:   When I open Build Gallery "JavaScript Functions" tab, right side is grayed out and left side is not editable. Am I therefore unable to create JavaScript?
A:   Before you can edit a custom JavaScript function, you must introduce it in one or both your variable URLs typing the call between square brackets, like [myfunction(parameters,[ranges],admitted)], exactly where you want it to be replaced with its result.
Only after this introduction, you will see myfunction() listed in the left side of the "JavaScript Functions" tab, and you will be able to edit its code on the right side.

5.2

Q:   I'm trying to assemble a gallery and it has preview thumbs in a structure like this: http://www.example.com/gallery/099/099.jpg
http://www.example.com/gallery/100/100.jpg
http://www.example.com/gallery/101/101.jpg
... Each preview thumb is in its own folder, as you can see.

Using http://www.example.com/gallery/[099-200]/[099-200].jpg as you would expect generates http://www.example.com/gallery/099/099.jpg
http://www.example.com/gallery/099/100.jpg
http://www.example.com/gallery/099/101.jpg
http://www.example.com/gallery/099/102.jpg
etc., and that just chews up memory with a lot of unuseful items.

What is the right syntax to do it?
A:   Since 0.5.9.3 you can use bracketed ranges references (AKA interrelated ranges), with no more need for custom JavaScript functions: [$1] stands for the first range, [$2] for the second and so on, up to [$9]. [$0] returns current global index (like this.index in custom JavaScript functions), while trailing zeroes after the $ character effect padding.
Hence Your example becomes:
which gives as desired!

5.3

Q:   Is there a way to change the appearance of the FlashGot generated galleries? I look at a lot of webcomics this way and so end up with a lot of images so close together that its tough to tell where one ends and the next one starts. I'd like to be able to change the border of the images and the spacing between them.
A:   You may use the Stylish extension or manually edit your userContent.css file adding something like this:

#flashgotGB-gallery img { padding: 8px; border: 2px solid black; }

6.1

Q:   What is the best download manager to be used with FlashGot?
A:   It's a matter of taste. Each one has its strengths and its glitches, so you should try some and decide what is better to you. The following are my current personal favourites, in order:

1. ReGet Deluxe (shareware) because of its superior flexibility and configurability. ReGet is also known to be better at intercepting and downloading audio/video streams, and it's capable to circumvent most anti-leech schemes
2. wxDownload Fast because it's open source and cross-platform (i.e. works on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X)
3. Speed Download (shareware) because it's the most advanced running on Mac OS X
4. Downloader 4 X (open source) because it's the most advanced running on Linux/FreeBSD

GetRight is a very popular shareware product too, with a small limitation but many innovative and powerful features (like scripting or upload support) which make it a great professional tool. A complete list of the supported products is here.

6.2

Q:   Why I'm not able to filter links I'm downloading with a "FlashGot All". The Select URL(s) dialog is not showing, and I start downloading links I don't want. Why?
A:   The Select URL(s) dialog (AKA Links Filter dialog) belongs to the external download manager. Not every supported product has it. Namely you won't find it in GetRight, Star Downloader and in some Linux and Mac OS X download managers. If you badly need it you may try to use FlashGot with a different product (e.g. ReGet or wxDownload Fast).

6.3

Q:   What advantages FlashGot over built-in Firefox support provided by some download managers (e.g. DAP or FDM)?
A:   FlashGot Selection and Build Gallery, just to name two features.

6.4

Q:   What does "RapidShare Support" mean?
A:  

• For RapidShare.com Premium users, the ability of downloading files (by any single or multiple FlashGot command) directly from wherever their links (sometimes called "codes") are posted. Just remember to enable the Direct downloads preference in your RapidShare.com Premium Zone Options page.
• For RapidShare.de Premium users (who are encouraged to migrate on the more download friendly RapidShare.COM), a little "hidden" feature to make mass downloading a bit easier. You can activate it by opening about:config in your Firefox address bar and turning on the flashgot.rsPremium preference. You need also to enable the FlashGot toolbar button.
  That's how it works:
  1. Login to your RapidShare account (once per session)
  2. Open all the links you want to download into tabs, by quickly middle-clicking on each or using the Linky extension ("Open selected links in new tabs") - anyway it's just a matter of 2/3 seconds...
  3. Now use the new "Rapidhshare Premium" menu item you should have under your FlashGot toolbar button menu and wait until all the tabs are reloaded (this automatically hits the "PREMIUM" button for you on each of the Rapidshare tabs)
  4. When the tabs have finished reloading, use the "Rapidhshare Premium" menu item again: this will batch-send all the Rapidshare links found in tabs to the download manager, automatically choosing one random mirror link from each tab.
  As I said, this is far from being an ultimate soultion, but at least it spares a lot of time and clicks when links are more than 2 (the more the links in a batch, the more the saved work).
  Notice that you can combine in a single operation as many links as you want, provided that your Firefox window doesn't collapse under the multiple tabs.
  
• For free (casual) users of both RapidShare.com and RapidShare.de, the ability of passing the file to be downloaded to the external download manager after they enter the captcha code (i.e. the code displayed as an image to fool bots).
  To do so, you must be careful and use Alt+Click (instead of the regular click) on the "Download" button, or use the FlashGot autostart downloads option.
  Notice that RapidShare limits free users to one single download at time, hence you will need to configure your download manager so that it avoids opening multiple concurrent connections towards RapidShare, or use a differnt Proxy Server for each connection. If this seems too much a hassle, you may consider opening a RapidShare.com Premium account.
  

6.5

Q:   I use cURL (or GetRight or WGet or another download manager having no built-in directory chooser). How can I require FlashGot to ask me the folder where I want to save the links every time I start a job? It keeps saving everything on my desktop, which is very annoying...
A:   FlashGot looks at the Firefox preferences to decide where files have to go if the external download manager doesn't ask by itself.
Just check:

• On Windows, Tools|Options|Downloads|Ask me where to save every file
• On Mac OS X, Firefox|Preferences|Downloads|Ask me where to save every file
• On Linux, File|Preferences|Downloads|Ask me where to save every file

6.6

Q:   I use GetRight (or cURL or WGet or another download manager having no built-in directory chooser). Since I upgraded FlashGot, it keeps asking me which folder I want to save my downloads in. It did not use to behave so, and I want my files to automatically be saved in the same directory without prompting.
A:   FlashGot looks at the Firefox preferences to decide where files have to go if the external download manager can't ask by itself.
Just set:

• On Windows, Tools|Options|Downloads|Save all files in this folder
• On Mac OS X, Firefox|Preferences|Downloads|Save all files in this folder
• On Linux, File|Preferences|Downloads|Save all files in this folder

Notice that some download managers may override this download folder preference, e.g. choosing the right directory depending on the file type.
Finally, FlashGot 0.5.9.995 and above asks for a download folder by default on batch downloads (e.g. FlashGot All or FlashGot Selection), no matter how the preferences above look like (they still apply to single link downloads). You can change this behaviour opening about:config in your location bar (just like a normal web address) and setting the flashgot.multiQuiet preference to true.

6.7

Q:   I use Downloader 4 X on Linux. Flashgot automatically finds it as "Downloader 4 X (nt)" and works almost fine. But referer and cookies is not handed over. Why?
A:   In order to discern Downloader 4 X version 2.5.6 (which supports refere and cookies) from the previous ones, FlashGot looks in the path both for nt and for d4x executables (or symbolic links).
The former is considered "old style" and is invoked with the URL only, while the latter is invoked with all the extra parameters.
Hence, you may want to create a symlink called d4x in your path pointing to your Downloader 4 X 2.5.6 executable and possibly remove nt from the path itself, so Downloader 4 X is correctly recognized and handled as 2.5.6 or above.

6.8

Q:   Why HalogenWare Retriever is automatically detected on Windows but not on other Java-enabled platforms, such as Linux or Mac OS X?
A:   Retriever's author Hayden Legendre graciously provided a patch implementing automatic detection in a cross-platform fashion. Unfortunately his clever method relied on the Java plugin, causing the JVM to be started inside the browser on every startup: an obviously unacceptable memory and performance burden, especially if you actually used a different download manager. Windows-only detection, instead, just performs one registry key, with no overhead. If you still want to use Retriever with FlashGot on non-Windows OS, you can create a custom download manager definition with the following data:
Name: Retriever
Executable: /usr/java/jdk1.5.0/jre/bin/java*
Template: -jar /usr/local/share/HalogenWare/Retriever/Retriever.jar** [URL] [Referer:REFERER] [Cookie:COOKIE]
*Actual path to the java executable on your system may vary.
**Adjust the JAR path to the place where you actually installed Retriever

6.9

Q:   How do I configure FlashGot to support Windows-native download managers on Linux or Mac OS X?
A:   Windows visual download managers are now fully supported on Linux and Mac OS X through Wine and Darwine (tested with FlashGet and Orbit Downloader on Ubuntu 8.0.4). You can enable or disable Wine support by setting the flashgot.useWine about:config preference to true or false.

7.1

Q:   How can I download video and audio streams with FlashGot?
A:   Just open the page where the video or audio stream plays, and as soon as it starts you will see a new FlashGot Media status bar icon flashing as a notification: you can either left-click it to download all the streams at once, or right-click to choose among multiple streams, if more than one have been found. Alternatively, you can press ctrl+F7 or select the FlashGot Media command from your context menu.

7.2

Q:   FlashGot Media works great with videos from Youtube and many other sites, but does not work in a few situations, e.g. when Brightcove videos are involved (like in the New York Times video section). How can I download Brightcove videos and the like?
A:   For that kind of video streams, which use an internal encrypted protocol bypassing the browser and therefore FlashGot, your only chance is an audio/video capture program. If you want an all-in-one solution which works great both as a download manager supported by FlashGot and as a capture tool, I recommend DownloadStudio.